Sophomore year of college Valentine's, I was "dating" a cute, blonde, and not-so-into-me punk rock boy. He had called to say that he wanted to come over to my apartment and see me that V-Day night, and I was sure it was so he could proclaim his love and probably surprise me with a romantic gift, even though we'd spent the previous weekend in his hometown together and it was iffy at best. Beginning weeks before, I had set about painstakingly making him a hand-painted wooden box as a Valentine's Day gift — the top of which was a mosaic of tiny multicolored pieces cut from magazine pages that I applied one by one with a toothpick and glue to form a night sky. Inside the lid, I had intended to put a quote that was, and I can't type it all here for reasons of space and my pride, Shakespeare's "Take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that BLAHHHHHHHHH UGH UGH UGH." READ MORE

During the summer of 1970, a young Rolling Stone writer named David Dalton had the Almost Famous-like experience of traveling with 27-year-old Janis Joplin on the Festival Express tour, just three months before her death. The tour, which traveled Canada by chartered train and was basically a nonstop party/jam session, included acts like The Band, The Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, Sha Na Na, and Eric Andersen (who's pictured below with Janis and her purse in Winnipeg). A soon-to-be-released film written by Dalton about their experience together (and directed by Penelope Spheeris), Gospel According to Janis, stars Zooey Deschanel as Joplin. READ MORE